LinkedIn会不会扼杀童真

    直到Facebook向没有高校或大学电子邮箱的用户开放之后，它才有了今天的成就。Facebook意识到，限制注册资格并不是打造社交媒体业务的明智之举。对于大多数社交媒体来说，规模就代表着一切。

    也正是因为这个原因，商务社交网站LinkedIn (LNKD)已向14岁以上的人士开放其服务，同时在打造供LinkedIn新用户考察的“大学网页”。正如《华尔街日报》（the Wall Street Journal ）所说的：

    LinkedIn此举并不是为了吸引那些长期浸淫在社交媒体、似乎已经厌倦了Facebook的青少年，而是在效仿通用汽车（General Motors）的老做法：培养客户要从娃娃抓起，一直陪伴他们度过人生的各个阶段。

    没有人会相信美国的青少年（在世界其他地区，青少年的最低年龄划分界限为13岁）会抛弃Instagram、Twitter、Facebook、或Ask.fm，转而投向LinkedIn的怀抱。然而，这其中很多人可能会创建个人资料，但随后，他们会和我们大多数人一样，只有等到需要的时候才会使用LinkedIn。

    然而，在一些博客们假想的另一种情形中，孩子们在使用LinkedIn后会很快失去自己的童真。在一篇带有些许讽刺口吻、但却看似非常严肃的帖子中，时尚网站Jezebel的凯莉•布斯曼写道：

    加入Linkedin的决定无异于是在向世人大声地宣布，“我已经将自己交给成人世界的各种沉闷；或者在看到自然美景之后，我不会再露出孩童般天真的微笑；魔法已经消失”。

    （请家长们注意：如果你们家的孩子到了14岁看到彩虹或小马驹时还会露出孩童般天真的笑容，你最好带他/她去看神经科医生。）布斯曼声称：“成为LinkedIn用户是认同自己成为‘年轻职业人士’的第一步，也是悲痛的一步；成为LinkedIn用户意味着人们需要意识到，自己永远也无法成为一位流行明星，一位大腕演员，至少也无法成为那种衣着鲜亮、居住在豪华公寓、似乎从来不用工作的人。”她总结说，公司将用户年龄底线由18岁下调至14岁，意味着LinkedIn已经采取措施，“意欲为童年柔弱的梦想设置更多的禁锢。”

    啊，是的。童年的时候，渴望成名的天真梦想似乎是可以实现的。而如今，人们会问，《单身女郎》（The Bachelorette，美国真人约会节目，意思说大人们变得很现实——译注）什么时间再播出来着？同时，科技媒体TechCrunch的乔什•康斯丁在表达对LindedIn的不满时更为直接。他提到，LinkedIn对于保护青少年用户的隐私特别在意，但是，“公司是否考虑过职业规划给刚进入青春期的孩子所带来的精神、发育和情感方面的影响呢？” 

    Facebook (FB) wasn't much until it opened itself up to people who didn't have a current email address issued by a college or university. Restricting access isn't a great way to build a social media business, Facebook realized. For most social media, scale is everything.

    That's why LinkedIn (LNKD) has opened its service up to people 14 and above and is creating "University Pages" for the new LinkedIn members to peruse. As the Wall Street Journal put it:

    For LinkedIn, it's less about trying to grab a group of savvy social-media kids allegedly growing bored with Facebook, and more about plying that old General Motors concept: Start out the customers young and stay with them through different stages of their lives.

    Nobody should believe that America's teenagers (the minimum age is 13 in some other parts of the world) are going to flock away from Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Ask.fm and toward LinkedIn. But a lot of them might create a profile, and then basically leave LinkedIn alone until they need it for something, like most of us do.

    In another scenario, one created in the minds of some bloggers, kids will surrender their childhoods immediately upon joining. In a post that rings some ironic tones but seems to be entirely serious, Jezebel's Callie Beusman wrote:

    Nothing says "I've resigned myself to all the dreary bits of adulthood; never again will I gurgle with childish joy at some delightful sight in nature; there is no such thing as magic" quite as clearly as the decision to make oneself a LinkedIn.

    (Note to parents: If your 14-year-old is gurgling with childish joy over a rainbow or a horsie, you might want to take him or her to a neurologist.) "Making a LinkedIn," Beusman declared, "is a sad first step towards identifying oneself as a 'young professional;' making a LinkedIn means realizing that you are never going to be a pop star or a very famous actor or, at the very least, someone who wears fashion culottes and lives in a very nice apartment despite never seeming to be employed." LinkedIn, she concludes, has "taken a step to limit the tender glimmer of childhood even more" by lowering the minimum age from 18 to 14.

    Ah, yes. Childhood. When innocent dreams of fame still seem obtainable. Now, what time is The Bachelorette on again?Over at TechCrunch, meanwhile, Josh Constine was much more earnest with his umbrage. He noted that LinkedIn is being particularly careful to protect younger users' privacy, but "what about the mental, developmental and emotional impact of plotting your career just as you hit puberty?